The owner of social media platform X, Elon Musk, on Tuesday (April 23) said that they will challenge an Australian injunction which has asked the platform to remove the videos of the church stabbing incident that took place in Sydney.

An injunction was secured by Australia’s internet watchdog late Monday as per which X is supposed to hide videos which allegedly showed someone allegedly slashing a Sydney bishop in the head during a live-streamed sermon.

The pleas of the Australian government to pull down the images were earlier ignored by X and Musk had stated that the company would appeal against the injunction on free speech grounds.

“Our concern is that if ANY country is allowed to censor content for ALL countries, which is what the Australian ‘eSafety Commissar’ is demanding, then what is to stop any country from controlling the entire Internet,” posted the tech billionaire on X.

“We have already censored the content in question for Australia, pending legal appeal, and it is stored only on servers in the USA,” he said.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said that Musk is an “arrogant billionaire” who is not able to see the distress caused by the videos.

“We’ll do what’s necessary to take on this arrogant billionaire who thinks he’s above the law, but also above common decency,” said Albanese, while speaking to public broadcaster ABC. 

“The idea that someone would go to court for the right to put up violent content on a platform shows how out-of-touch Mr Musk is,” he added.

A late-night injunction was granted to Australia’s eSafety Commission which forced X to remove the church stabbing footage for the next two days as further arguments remained pending.

The videos were blocked by X in Australia, however, they are still visible to users in other parts of the world.

A 16-year-old suspect had last week slashed bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel in the head and chest which sparked a riot by the Assyrian Christian church’s followers in western Sydney.

Watch: Elon Musk announces new X feature – Community Posts

The government authorities in Australia have blamed the video of the bloody attack, which was widely circulated on social media platforms, for increasing tensions in the community.

Australia, with its groundbreaking “Online Safety Act” which was passed in 2021, has made efforts to hold tech giants accountable for the posts made by their users online.

Recently, X was slapped with a fine of $388,000 by the watchdog for not being able to show how it is combatting child sexual abuse content.

(With inputs from agencies)